UMASS/AMHERST  PI 


A   Theory    Of  Rur^l  Attitudes 

By 
L  .  L  .  Bernard 


:i 


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MASSACHUSETTS 

AGRICULTURAL 

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A  THEORY  OP  RURAL  ATTITUDES. 
By  L.  L.  Bernard,  University  of  Missouri. 


It  is  quite  generally  recognized  that  on  the  average 

rural  people  }aave  certain  psycho-social  characteristics  more 

fully  or  less  fully  developed,  as  the  case  may  "be,  than  have 

the  general  run  of  the  urhan  population.  Occasionally  we  find 

these  traits  referred  to  collectively  as  the  "rural  mind", 

A  careful  distinction  should  be  made  here.   In  general  mental 

equipment  the  farmer  is  not  different  from  other  people.  He 

possesses  the  same  fundamental  processes  and  powers  of  thinking 

and  has,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  same  general  neural  organization. 

It  is  not  therefore  his  "mind"  in  any  fundamental  or  inherent  sense 

of  method  which  is  different.  ^ It  is  in  his  judgments  and 

attitudes,  which  he  has  "built  out  of  experience  and  training, 

that  he  departs  from  the  standards  and  viewpoints  of  others," 

1/ 
His  psychical  differentiation  is  in  the  last  analysis  a  social 

rather  than  a  "biological  one.  For  this  reason  we  refer  to  these 

collective  traits  as  "attitudes"  rather  than  as  "mind",  because 

of  the  more  inclusive  reference  of  the  former  term. 

The  origin  and  causation  of  these  differences  in  attitude 

may  properly  "be  considered  from  a  nun"ber  of  standpoints.   If  we 

appeal  to  hereditary  differences  it  is  obvious  that  there 

are  no  distinctions  of  this  sort  between  ruralite  and  urbanite 

sufficient  to  account  for  the  differences  in  attitudinal  traits. 

Traditions  and  customs,  especially  of  an  occupational  and 

associational  sort,  may  well  account  for  a  larger  number  of 

differences  in  attitude.   Conventions  become  localized  and 


2- 


persist  within  the  limits  of  certain  types  of  environment.  But 
if  we  are  considering  an  occupational  class  or  group  as  a  whole  we 
must  account  for  the  origin  even  of  the  conventions  themselves  which 
are  perpetuated  and  which  continue  to  influence  the  culture 
and  attitudes  of  the  rural  people.   The  explanation  of  these 
attitudes,  it  would  seem,  we  must  ultimately  discover  in  the 
occupational  environment  and  life  activities  of  the  country 
dweller.   It  is  out  of  the  conditions  of  his  existence,  and  the 
demands  that  they  have  made  upon  him  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
and  for  progress  and  out  of  the  limitations  which  they  have  placed 
upon  him  in  these  same  endeavors  that  we  must  seek  in  the  main 
for  the  genesis  and  continuance  of  these  attitudes.  Of  course  we 
must  also  consider  the  influence  of  social  suggestion  arising  from 
without  the  limits  of  his  group.  "^  In  our  day  there  is  a  flood  of  nm 
suggestion  influences  coming  from  the  city  through  various 
puhlicity  and  contact  channels  and  these  are  modifying  greatly  the 
attitudes  of  the  rural  people.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
these  forces  of  social  suggestion  coming  from  without  are  destroying 
the  typically  rural  attitudes  of  mind  rather  than  building  them  up. 
At  most  they  are  reconstructing,  when  they  are  not  destroying,  them. 
It  is  therefore  in  the  occupational  and  living  conditions  of  the 
farmer  that  an  ultimate  explanation  of  his  attitudes  must  be  sought. 

As  to  the  identity  of  these  attitudes  there  is  little 
dispute.   Conservatism,  more  or  less  disregard  of  scientific  method, 
religious  and  political  orthodoxy,  emotional  intensity  with 
consequent  high  suggestibility  along  the  lines  of  his  conventional 
interests  and  attitudes,  individualism,  a  certain  ineptitude  for 
the  so-called  finer  distinctions  in  humor  and  sentiment,  and  a 


3- 


frugality  and  thrift  whicii  sometimes  "border  upon  parsimony  are 
traits  which  most  people  acquainted  witli  the  contrasts  between 
urban  and  rural  life  vrould  believe  are  characteristic  of  the 
farmer. 

1.   Farming  for  the  most  part  has  not  been  a  scientifically 
directed  occupation,  though  it  is  constantly  becoming  such.   The 
farmer  has  not  been  accustomed  to  plan  his  crops  and  cultivate 
the  soil  with  his  mind  intent  upon  soil  physics,  chemical 
formulae  and  the  problems  of  supply  and  demand  in  relation  to 
world  or  national  markets.  Failing  has  been  for  him  at  most  an 
art,  and  often  it  has  been  merely  artless.   The  nearest  approach 
to  science  lias  been  on  the  one  hand  a  sort  of  rule-of-thumb 
methodology  which  even  in  our  day,  for  large  masses  of  the 
rural  population,  has  not  progressed  far,  if  at  all,  beyond  the 
emperical  observations  of  the  old  Roman  writers  on  husbandry. 
On  the  other  hand,  agriculture  has  made  a  sort  of  pseudo  approach 
to  scientific  method  in  the  form  of  the  application  of  magic  to 
planting  and  tillage.  Many  farmers  still  plant  their  crops  and 
make  hay  by  the  moon.   The  farmer  has  not  generally  had  a 
scientific  attitude  either  toward  his  oocupational  activities  or 
toward  the  other  phenomena  about  him.   His  conventional  thinking  has 
been  liberally  mixed  with  superstition.  Thus  we  have  a  very  concrete 
illustration  of  the^rofound  influence  of  occupational  adjustment 
upon  the  thinking  of  the  occupational  group.   It  constitutes 
a  sort  of  occupational  psychosis. 

The  city  man  may  be  quite  as  unscientific  in  another 
way,  owing  to  the  narrowing  influences  of  mere  rule-of-thumb  and 
monotonous  processes  in  his  own  industry,  which  fail  to  stimulate 
him  to  any  deep  curiosity  regarding  the  world  in  which  he  lives. 


But  the  city  man,  is,  on  the  whole,  much  more  likely  to  use  or  to 
Bee  used  a  considera'ble  number  of  the  scientific  processes  and  he 
is  more  likely  to  entertain  a  more  or  less  logical  appreciation  of 
some  of  the  general  chemical,  physical,  economic  and  psychological 
principles  which  lie  back  of  his  particular  occupational  processes. 
Thus,  however  incompletely,  he  comes  to  think  more  fully  and  more 
broadly  than  the  average  rural  dweller.  Of  course  the  modern 
farmer  is  coming  more  and  more  to  use  machinery,  to  deal  with  the 

physics  and  chemistry  of  soils  and  to  study  markets,  and  he  also 

4 
is  coming  to  think  in  terms  of  science  instead  of  in  the  symbolism 

of  magic  and  custom.  The  result  is  that  he  grows  in  an  appreciation 

of  the  wider  problems  of  nature  and  of  life.  He  begins  to  lose  his 

narrowness  and  dogmatism  and  his  imperviousness  to  new  ideas.  It  is 

no  reflection  upon  the  farmer  that  he  has  not  developed  applications 

of  science  to  his  business.  Agriculture  has  not  been  so  organized 

as  to  make  it  possible  to  work  out  such  applications  through 

experimental  methods.   Special  institutions,  such  as  agricultural 

experiment  stations,  had  to  be  developed  for  these  purposes  in  order 

that  the  applied  sciences  of  agriculture  and  horticulture  might  be 

carried  back  to  the  farmer.   In  those  cases  where  voluntary 

organizations  of  farmers  have  financed  experimental  work  in 

agriculture  there  had  previously  been  a  high  degree  of  development 

of  conscious  cooperation  in  the  farming  population, 

2,  Since  the  farmer's  chief  business  is  to  draw. food 

values  directly  or  indirectly  from  the  soil,  the  great  majority 

of  farmers  are  cut  off  from  close  contacts  with  cultural  centers. 

In  the  present  -development  of  our  civilization  none  but  the 

larger  cities  and  those  smaller  ones  in  which  universities  are 

located —  and  these  constitute  only  a  partial  exception— can  be 


called  true  centers  of  culture  and  science  which  are  available  to 
the  general  public.  Thus  the  farmers  as  a  class  are  quite 
effectively  isolated  "by  distance  from  the  broadening  and  culture 
developing  contacts  of  our  civilization,  ^hile  perhaps  the  majority 
of  city  dwellers  have  these  within  easy  reach  and  make  use  of  them 
to  a  considerable  extent.  This  fact  goes  far  in  helping  to 
explain  the  narrowness  of  the  rural  mind  of  which  so  much  has  been 
said.   This  want  of  breadth  of  outlook  due  to  isolation  is  an 
indirect  rather  than  a  direct  effect  of  occupation,  but  it  is  quite 
definitely  traceable  to  it.   The  farmer  is  not  narrow  in  his  thinking 
because  of  heredity- -though  some  have  put  forth  this  extreme 
explanation--but  because,  in  his  isolated  habitats  he  is  necessarily 
out  of  the  current  of  vital  and  stimulating  and  creative  thinking, 
"^But  it  is  hardly  true  to  say  that  distance  from  cultural 
centers  is  the  sole  factor  in  this  isolation.  Per  the  distance 
element  is  now  being  minimized,  if  not  eliminated,  through  the  aid 
of  the  rural  free  delivery,  the  telephone,  circulating  libraries, 
extension  lectures  and  other  related  agencies.  The  effectiveness 
of  such  aids  to  rural  culture .however,  is  and  probably  always  will 
be  sadly  limited.   For  the  daily  newspaper,  the  current  magazine 
and  the  popular  book  which  are  likely  to  reach  the  farmer  through 
the  mail  or  the  circulating  library  carry  but  a  minimum  of  that 
deeper  culture  which  really  marks  the  educated  man  with  a  broad 
and  functional  outlook  upon  the  world.   The  extension  lecturer  is 
doing  more,  if  in  a  somewhat  limited  and  often  technical  field, 
and  in  the  future  may  do  his  transforming  work  even  more 
effectively.  But  the  fact  still  remains  that,  whatever  exception 
we  may  make  in  behalf  of  the  small  percentage  of  college  educated 
farmers,  the  vast  majority  of  farmers  are  still  woefully  narrowed  by 


the  geographical  isolation  to  which  they  are  subject  due  to  the 
inherent  character  of  their  occupation,  tliat  of  standing  midway 
between  nature  and  the  hungry  masses  of  the  world, 

3«  Occupation  operates  no  less  effectively  in  a 
slightly  different  manner  to  influence  the  farmer's  attitudes 
throTigh  what  we  may  call  occupational,  as  distinguished  from 
Vgeo graphical,  isolation.  The  lahor  which  he  performs  is  of  such 
a  character  that  it  must  be  done  habitually,  or  at  least  quite 
often,  by  individuals  working  separately  rather  than  in  groups. 
Whether  it  be  plowing,  harvesting,  doing  the  chores,  or  hauling 
the  produce  to  market,  the  farmer's  occupation  is  relatively  a 
solitary  one.   He  is  denied  that  stimulating  intercourse  and 
thought  contact  which  the  city  man  can  ordinarily  enjoy  in  his 
work  because  he  labors  as  a  member  of  a  group  rather  than  as 
an  individual.   The  result  is  that  the  farmer  thinks  out  most  of 
his  problems  alone,  or  they  are  thought  out  for  him  and  passed 
down  to  him  by  the  agricultural  expert,  "In  either  case  there  is 
a  certain  loss.  If  some  one  else  does  his  thinking  for  him  he 
misses  the  general  and  cultural  background  wMch  is  in  the 
agricultural  expert's  mind;  he  fails  to  get  the  scientific 
connection  and  stimulus  which  should  be  invaluable  to  him  and  to 
society  because  of  the  broadening  effect  and  the  efficiency  which 
it  would  create  in  him.  Without  it  he  is  more  or  less  the  rule- 
of-thumb  operator  performing  at  the  dictation  of  the  man  above 
who  knows  and  appreciates  while  he  directs.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  he  is  left  to  do  his  thinking  alone,  he  not  only  fails  to  get 
as  far  along  as  he  might  if  he  had  the  help  and  suggestion  of  his 
fellows,  but  he  fails  to  develop  that  most  invaluable  of  all 


L/ 

traits  in  our  civilization— facility  in  cooperative  thinking 
and  doing.   This  is  undoubtedly  the  greatest  evil  of  the  farmer's 
solitary  occupation,  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  may  be 
effectively  avoided.   It  makes  him  an  individualist  both  in 
ethics  and  in  activity,  Not  being  accustomed  to  sharing  his 
ideas  and  problems  with  others,  nor  being  accustomed  to  work 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  them,  he  does  not  develop  facility  in 
basis  methods  of  contact  and  cooperation.   To  this  more  than  to  any 
other  one  cause  is  due  the  farmer's  aloofness  from  cooperative 
enterprises,  even  when  his  own  interests  are  defini-tely  at  stake. 
He  does  not  feel  comfoite-ble  in  working  with  others  because  the 
techniques  have  not  become  second  nature  with  him.  He  is  likely 
to  be  suspicious  of  his  neighbors  because  he  is  not  with  them 
enough  to  understand  them  and  their  motives. 

Even  when  the  farmer  does  enter  into  a  cooperative 
undertaiking,  this  trait  of  enforced  individualism  only  too 
frequently  foreordains  its  failure.   He  lacks  the  technique  of 
getting  along  with  others  throughout  a  continuous  operation.  He  is 
used  to  doing  things  by  himself,  to  acting  on  his  own  initiative 
without  any  considerable  reference  to  others.   If  he  fails  to 
keep  faith,  nine  times  out  of  ten  it  is  not  because  he  lacks  a 
due  respect  for  his  word  or  believes  on  principle  that  contracts 
are  not  binding,  but  because  it  is  not  in  his  muscles  and  nervous 
system  to  work  in  harness.  His  habits  of  action  lie  in  other 
directions  and  the  stimuli  which  set  them  off  into  action  have 
more  individual  than  social  or  cooperative  connections.  He  fails 
in  team  work  because  his  mind  is  not  trained  in  it.    Here  the 
city  man  has  an  advantage  over  him  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  a 
method  of  overcoming. 


4,  Again,  his  occupation  is  more  or  less  seasonal,  even 
when  he  follows  a  more  distinctively  diversified  type  of  farming. 
There  are  periods  of  hard  rush  work,  often  extremely  trying  even 
to  the  robust  man  developed  in  an  outdoor  occupation,  but 
especially  wearing  upon  the  person  of  delicate  organization.   Such 
periods  are  followed  by  times  of  slackness,  when  the  work  is  light 
but  at  the  same  time  confining.  These  facts  profoundly  influence 
the  type  of  culture  and  recreation  of  which  the  farmer  can  avail 
himself.  Except  in  special  type  farming,  such  as  exclusive  grain 
raising,  he  is  not  able  to  leave  his  farm  and  go  on  long  trips 
seeking  changes  of  scene  and  of  ideas.  Even  in  special  or  single 
type  farming  such  an  opportunity  is  the  exception  rather  than  the 
rule.  Consequently  his  leisure  activities  must  be  performed  at 
home,  reaching  at  most  into  trips  of  only  a  few  hours  or  days  to 
the  nearby  city  or  town.  He  hardly  has  a  chance  to  develop  an 
interest  in  art  or  science  or  literature.  If  he  reads  at  all 
outside  his  own  occupational  line--and  such  reading,  even  of 
government  bulletins,  is  rather  exceptional --he  is  likely  to 
limit  his  literary  pursuits  to  a  current  magazine  of  the  cheap  sort 
or  to  a  popular  novel  or  book  of  jokes. 

His  recreation,  however,  is  not  likely  to  be  of  so  tame  a 
character.  He  is  bred  to  an  active  life  physically  in  which  play  of 
muscle  takes  the  leading  part.   It  is  scarcely  feasible  for  him  to 
change  his  physical  habits  abruptly,  if  he  is  healthy  in  body,  from 
strenuous  toil  to  colorless  indoor  pursuits.  When  not  at  work  he 
either  lounges  and  sleeps  around  his  fire  or  under  the  trees  and 
grows  corpulent  and  listless  intellectually  from  overeating  and 
Tinder  exercise,  or  he  turns  to  a  form  of  recreation  which  is  largely 
of  the  muscular,  bodily  activity  type.   The  old  time  country 


gentleman  amused  himself  with  horses  and  hounds.   The  farmer  of  today 
occupies  his  leisure  time  in  games  of  skill  and  strength,  in 
motoring,  hunting  and  fishing,  and  feats  of  strength,  or,  if  such 
entertainment  is  lacking,  in  dissipation  which  so  often  gives  the 
desired  tang  to  unoccupied  muscle  and  nerve  when  more  normal 
expression  is  not  available, 

^    Correlatively,  his  occupation  does  not  call  for  vigorous 
mental  exertion,  or  rather,  as  at  present  organized  it  does  not 
call  forth  a  great  degree  of  intellectual  activity  among  most 
farmers.   Therefore,  when  he  does  have  leisure  from  his  regular 
routine  he  is  little  fitted  to  substitute  mental  for  physical 
exercises.   This  explains  in  large  part  why  the  abundant  time  at 
the  disposal  of  the  farmer  in  winter  is  so  poorly  employed.  The 
farmer  perhaps  more  than  any  other  class  of  physical  laborer  might 
become  proficient  in  the  serious  thought  of  his  age  through 
technical  magazines  and  good  books,  but  serious  reading  tires  him 
unduly  and  bores  him  dreadfully.  He  is  not  used  to  it.  His 
energy  runs  to  muscles  more  than  to  speciilative  thinking. 

Along  with  this  disinclination  to  mental  exertion  in  a 
literary  way  usually  goes  also  a  lack  of  subtlety  in  thinking.  His 
humor  and  his  sentiment  both  lack  the  finer  touches  of  the  highly 
imaginative  person.  In  love  he  is  ardent,  but  relatively 
speechless,  and  acts  of  devotion  more  often  take  the  form  of 
strenuous  exertion  and  stoical  silence  than  that  of  artistically 
phrased  sentiments  of  a  delicate  claaracter.  Directness  is  his 
greatest  virtue  in  matters  which  he  deems  important,  and  this 
even  to  the  point  of  rudeness.  He  enjoys  a  joke,  especially 
if  it  is  on  some  one  else,  but  his  humor  is  mostly  of  the  obvious 
sort,  dealing  largely  in  practical  jokes  and  horse  play. 


10 


Especially  is  this  true  of  the  cruder  and  more  rustic  types.  Of 
course  the  educated  farmer  who  has  been  accustomed  to  cultiiral 
contacts  and  who  has  developed  intellectual  habits  as  a  means  to 
occupational  advancement  has  advanced  far  beyond  the  cruder 
attitudes  here  described. 

Many  of  these  traits  apply  to  the  city  man,  especially 
of  the  lower  occupational  grades,  almost  if  not  altogether  as  well. 
But  they  also  characterize  the  rural  dweller  and  in  their  central 
reference--the  countryman* s  lack  of  subtlety  and  indirection-- 
they  have  been  used  most  frequently  and  most  effectively  to  create 
a  semi-mythical  rural  type.  The  conception  of  the  countryman  as 
a  purcliaser  of  green  goods  and  gold  bricks  has  probably  been 
overworked,  but  even  this  caricature  illustrates  the  basic 
idea.  His  lack  of  penetration  of  deception  is  closely  akin  to  his 
failure  to  perceive  the  keeper  subtleties  of  humor  and  the  richer 
niceties  of  life. 

This  sudden  transition  from  hard  labor  to  unoccupied 
leisure  occasionally  has  most  serious  results  for  the  farmer, 
Peeling  the  organic  need  of  some  strong  and  definite  stimulus  he 
sometimes  yields  to  the  temptation  to  supply  this  want  by  means 
of  vices,  such  as  hard  drinking.  Prom  these  he  secures  a 
nervous  and  physical  reaction  not  wholly  unlike  that  which  he 
was  accustomed  to  obtain  from  hard  physical  toil.   This  sort  of 
transition  from  labor  to  vice  is  also  found  among  city  laborers 
who  are  for  one  reason  or  another  forced  out  of  employment  into 
idleness.   One  of  the  chief  values  of  community  recreation  and 
athletics  is  perhaps  of  this  negative  sort,  that  it  provides  a 
normal  instead  of  an  abnormal  method  of  utilizing  surplus 
energies. 


11 


5.   The  farmer  lias  often  been  contrasted  with  the  city- 
man  on  account  of  Ms  greater  degree  of  conservatism.  That  the 
ruralite  is  less  willing  to  try  experiments  in  political  and 
social  affairs,  especially  where  revenue  considerations  are 
involved,  is  not  merely  a  popular  illusion.   It  is  well  evidenced 
by  the  voting  records  of  the  two  divisions  of  the  population.  The 
politicians  not  infrequently  trust  to  the  rural  vote  to  kill 
off  movements  or  reforms,  especially  those  which  have  reference 
to  taxation,  labor  conditions  and  sanitation,  which  threaten  to 
put  a  stop  to  the  good  old  ways  of  doing  things  which  have  proved 
so  profitable  to  the  defenders  of  special  interests.  It  is 
also  customary  for  state  legislatures,  facing  both  horns 
of  the  political  dilemma,  to  formally  pass  industrial  and  social 
reform  bills  and  then  turn  them  over  for  a  referendum  to  the  farmers, 
who  they  feel  confident  will  undertalce  the  responsibility  of 
disposing  of  them. 

jl^his  greater  conservatism  of  the  farmer  can  be  explained 
in  part  by  reference  to  some  of  the  factors  alreadj^entioned, 
in  particular  to  his  geographical  and  cultural  isola-tion  and  to 
his  lack  of  close  cooperative  contacts  in  his  industry.  But  these 
factors  are  not  sufficient  to  explain  the  whole  situation.   In  some 
cases  isolation  and  lack  of  cooperative  contacts  work  in  just  the 
opposite  direction.  Through  ignorance  they  may  and  do  easily  breed 
rashness  and  radicalism  in  certain  fields,  especially  where  the 
class  interests  of  the  farmers  are  involved,  which  clearly 
shows  that  they  do  not  always  work  for  conservatism.  A  notable 
instance  of  this  opposite  tendency  is  the  free  silver  craze  of  the 
late  eighteen  nineties.   Though  this  movement  had  its  roots  in 


12 


the  desire  of  the  rural  west  for  cheaper  money  with  which 
to  pay  off  farm  mortgages,  it  owed  its  vogue  on  the  one  hand 
to  the  ignorance  of  economics  which  characterized  the  farmers 
and  on  the  other  hand  to  a  radicalism  horn  of  class  interest 
which  had  finally  been  aroused.  Also  the  must  better  balanced 
and  earlier  agrarian  movement  for  legislative  justice,  especially 
in  regard  to  railway  transportation  rates,  illustrates  the 
ability  of  fanners  to  cooperate  in  a  large  (if  somewhat  loose) 
political  way  in  the  interest  of  radical  reforms,  in  spite  of 
their  isolation  and  individualism.   The  recent  movements  in 
North  Dakota  and  Canada  afford  even  better  illustrations  of  this 
fact,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  such  cooperation  as  has 
arisen  came  as  the  result  of  very  strong  feelings  of  resentment 
consequent  upon  often  repeated  injuries. 

The  more  potent  factor  in  producing  the  conservatism  of 
the  farmer  ir.  the  sensitiveness  of  his  industrial  life  to 
political  programs  and  procedure,  though  his  lack  of  understanding 
of  new  movements  due  to  his  isolation  always  plays  a  large  part 
in  his  failure  to  support  them.  He  is  conservative  for  the  same 
reason  that  the  capitalist  engaged  in  financing  machine  industry  is 
conservative,  because  political  and  social  changes,  however  good 
they  may  be  for  society  as  a  whole  and  in  the  long  run, 
necessarily  hurt  individual  industries  because  they  make  more  demands 
for  industrial  readjustment  than  the  flexibility  of  the 
industries  can  stand.   The  industrial  capitalist  has  an  advantage 
over  the  agricultural  capitalist  in  that  he  usxially  understands 
better  the  nature  of  the  changes  which  will  be  produced  by  new 
laws  and  can  therefore  better  adapt  himself.   The  farmer  is  not 
usually  efficient  in  economic  analysis,  but  he  believes  he  has 


13 


observed  that  after  one  or  another  party  has  gone  into  power, 
or  after  certain  laws  have  been  enacted,  the  prices  of  his 
products  dropped  or  demand  fell  off  or  taxes  increased,  and 
therefore  he  condemns  on  general  principles  the  whole  scheme 
of  experimentation  in  law  making  or  of  legislation.   The  recent 
reactionary  tendencies  of  the  Wisconsin  farmers,  so  long 
accounted  true  progressives,  seems  to  have  been  due  primarily  to 
the  rapid  increase  of  tax  levies  in  that  state.    This  increase 
in  taxes  was  a  very  concrete  fact.  But  the  connection  between 
such  increase  in  the  tax  bill  and  the  future  improvement  of  the 
state  through  the  many  reforms  and  the  improved  administration 
thereby  made  possible  was  not  so  obvious.   The  farmers  had  not 
been  trained  in  their  schools  or  elsewhere  to  appreciate  the  wider 
problems  of  government  concretely  enough  to  give  their  assent  to 
radically  increased  expenditures,  even  for  the  best  long  time 
progress. 

The  very  indefiniteness  in  the  farmer *s  mind  with 
respect  to  the  causal  connection  between  new  legislation  and 
economic  depression  adds  to  the  intensity  of  distrust  with  which 
he  regards  new  programs.  If  his  understanding  were  better  he 
would  be  better  able  to  discriminate,  as  the  industrial 
capitalist  already  does,  to  a  greater  extent,  between  those 
programs  which  do  and  doiiiot  affect  him  adversely.  But  owing 
to  hie  lack  of  this  power  of  discrimination  due  to  his  want  of 
training  in  economic  and  social  analysis,  his  general  attitude 
of  prejudice  against  legislative  movements  for  social  welfare  is 
utilized  by  the  capitalist  classes  as  a  basis  for  misinforming 
him  through  their  press  with  regard  to  the  actual  merits  of  many 
issues  which  would  be  to  his  general  advantage. 


14 


But  even  under  the  most  favorable  conditions  of 
understanding  and  analysis  the  entrepreneur  either  in  agriculture 
or  in  manufacturing  and  commerce  is  destined  to  be  a 
conservative  merely  because  changes  in  the  organization  and 
activities  of  society  as  a  whole  must  reflect  themselves  in  the 
industries  and  cause  readjustments  there  which  are  always 
embarrassing  to  the  man  whose  industry  is  already  formed.  These 
social  changes  affect  him  relatively  directly  and  they  affect 
him  all  the  more  seriously  the  less  he  knows  of  the  relations 
of  his  particular  industry  to  the  social  and  industrial  ?/orld 
in  which  he  lives.  And  the  average  farmer  knows  all  too  little 
of  these  relationships,  Furthermore,  the  smallness  of  the 
margin  of  credit  and  capital  which  is  available  in  the  small  farm 
industry,  and  the  very  great  difficulties  involved  in  changing 
from  one  crop  or  routine  to  another — difficulties  both  of  technique 
and  of  finance — make  the  problems  of  readjustment  in  agriculture 
relatively  greater  perhaps  than  they  are  in  machine  industry. 

On  the  other  hand  the  great  masses  of  the  city  dwellers 
are  not  entrepreneurs  but  wage  workers.  They  are  never 
satisfied  with  the  role  which  the  capitalist  assigns  to  them. 
So  their  quarrel  is  not  with  change  but  with  the  world  as  it  is. 
True,  they  are  affected  by  social  changes  which  depress  industry, 
but  they  are  affected  indirectly  while  the  capitalist  is  reached 
directly.   The  wage  earned  is  perhaps  on  the  whole  not  better 
able  to  analyze  social  and  economic  causes  than  is  the  f&Tmer, 


15 


At  least  he  does  not  analyze  indirect  connections  "better  than 
the  farmer  analyzes  direct  ones.  Consequently  he  is  more 
likely  to  "be  content  with  "blaming  the  capitalist  for  his 
condition  and  allowing  the  matter  to  drop  there  than  he  is  to  go 
in  his  thinking  to  some  remoter  cause  such  as  reputed 
"overlegislation"  or  "sentimental  lawmaking."  He  is  a  radical 
with  respect  to  the  existing  order  because  he  is  not  a  property 
owner,  while  the  farmer  and  the  capitalists  are  frequently 
conservatives  "because  they  are  owners  of  industries  sensitive 
to  nev/  legislation  involving  economic  readjustment.   Their 
respective  attitudes  grow  out  of  the  self  and  class  interests 
of  the  two  groups,  however  dimly  conscious  of  them  they  may  be, 

6.   The  ruralite  is  also  knownfor  his  religious 
conservatism.   This  hostility  to  new  ideas  in  matters  of  theology 
is  in  part  due  to  the  isolation  from  the  broad  cultural  contacts 
referred  to  above,  to  the  farmer's  relative  lack  of  reading 
habits  and  to  his  \inscientific  attitudes  and  methods  in  general 
growing  out  of  his  particular  type  of  occupational  contacts. 
These  causes  of  conservatism  have  already  been  sufficiently 
discussed.   There  is  still  another  and  at  least  an  equally 
important  cause  of  conservatism.   The  closeness  to  nature  of  the 
farmer,  bringing  him  directly  into  contact  with  the  concrete 
processes  of  growth,  transformation  and  decay,  gives  him  a 
mystical  or  religious  bent  of  mind.  At  first  thought  this  may 
seem  paradoxical,  for  we  are  apt  to  suppose  that  there  could 
be  no  better  soil  for  the  cultivation  of  the  scientific  outlook 
and  the  critical  viewpoint  than  in  the  observation  of  nature  at 
work  in  her  naked  simplicity,  For  here  are  found  in  action  the 


16 


very  processes  with  which  science  deals  uncloaked  "by  a  veil 
of  verbiage  and  gratuitous  reflection  and  description.  But 
concrete  as  science  itself  is  in  the  new  view  which  it  opens  up  to 
the  mind  and  in  its  method,  it  is  the  product  of  abstraction. 
Scientific  principles  and  generalizations  do  not  lie  uncovered 
on  the  face  of  nature .merely  to  be  observed  in  order  to  be 
apprehended.   The  concrete  data  are  there,  but  the  unity  which 
lies  back  of  nature's  concreteness  and  directness,  wliich 
constitutes  science,  is  not  to  be  seen  merely  for  the  observing 
by  the  unaided  eye.   Science  or  generalization  is  to  be  derived 
from  nature  only  by  abstraction--  by  collection,  systematization, 
classification,  and  logical  analysis  and  synthesiB--in  short  by 
means  of  the  statistical  method  plus  interpretation,  How  this  is 
just  what  the  untrained  dweller  upon  the  soil  does  not  do  to 
nature.  Our  primitive  ancestors  did  not  do  it  and  the  modern 
farmer  who  has  not  been  scientifically  trained  does  it  only  to  a 
slight  extent.    To  each  of  these  the  concreteness,  vitalness, 
even  personified  mystery  of  nature  overpowers  the  orderly  abstract 
in  her.  Nature  as  the  mathematician,  chemist,  physicist  and 
bacteriologist  see  her  can  scarcely  exist  for  the  person  whose 
attention  has  always  been  upon  transformations  without  obvious 
process  and  changes  without  visible  causation,   For  the  old-time 
farmer  the  seasons  came  and  went,  the  corn  sprouted  and  grew, 
matured  and  died.  He  saw  the  result,  but  he  did  not  see  the 
concrete  process.   The  naked  eye  could  not  see  it;  only  scientific 
abstraction  can  comprehend  it  as  a  physico-chemical  process. 
Not  seeing  science  he  saw  mystery  instead,  for  the  thinking  mind 


17 


must  have  unity  and  causation  of  some  sort  back  of  all  its 
experiences.   The  nearness  to  nature  of  the  farmer  therefore 
has  made  him  mystical  and  religious  rather  than  scientific 
and  abstract. 

The  city  man,  especially  of  modern  times,  works  with 
machines,  or  at  least  with  transforming  processes  which  are  for 
the  most  part  purely  physical  in  character.   The  method  of  these 
operations  and  transformations  is  perfectly  obvious.   There  is  no 
mysterious  growth  and  decay  in  which  the  result  but  not  the 
process  is  seen.   The  city  machine  worker  has  his  attention 
primarily  upon  the  process  and  it  is  tangible  and  visible  to  the 
naked  eye.   There  is  then  a  very  close  connection  between  the 
direct  occupational  contacts  of  the  farmer  and  his  mysticiBm  and 
his  theological  attitudes,  which,  over  and  above  his  isolation  and 
his  lack  of  reading  render  him  conservative  religiously.   To  be 
sure  the  modern  farmer  is  coming  more  and  more  to  abstract  his 
operations  away  from  the  concrete  interrupted  appearances  which 
confront  him.  He  is  becoming  constantly  more  scientific  and  the 
mystery  is  gradually  fading.  At  the  same  time  his  traditional 
religious  attitude  vranes,  but  it  is  not  likely  soon  to  disappear 
entirely. 

Not  only  does  the  failure  to  analyze  the  process  of 
growth  and  decay  with  which  the  farmer  is  so  intimately  connected 
occupationally  predispose  him  to  a  religious  and  mystical  attitude 
in  general,  but  his  environment  is  such  that  the  traditional  religious 
beliefs  and  dogmas  in  which  he  is  brought  up  make  a  stronger 
personal  appeal  to  him  than  they  do  to  the  average  city  man.   The 
relative  hardness  of  his  life  impresses  him  strongly  with  the 


18 


stern  and  puritanical  attitudes  of  the  powers  that  watch  over  him. 
He  is  close  enough  in  actual  experiences  to  the  type  of  life 
described  in  the  Hebrew  scriptures  to  enable  them  to  make  a 
tremendous  appeal  to  him  and  to  cause  him  to  accept  them  as  a 
source  of  thought  and  inspiration.   Thus  the  religious  dogmas 
and  conventions  under  the  influence  of  which  he  was  brought  up  tend 
to  be  reenforced  in  him. 

But  with  all  this  occupational  and  pseudo-experiential 
basis  of  mysticism  and  theological  conservatism,  the  farmer  is 
quite  capable  of  becoming  a  religious  radical.  Most  of  the 
powerful  but  simple  sects  and  crazes,  such  as  Millerism,  the  so- 
called  "Holy  Rollers",  or  the  doctrine  of  the  gift  of  tongues,  are 
of  rural  origin.  At  least  it  is  in  the  country  that  they  get  their 
chief  following. ^  Altogether  it  may  perhaps  safely  be  said  that 
the  rural  population  is  much  more  radical  in  regard  to  variations  h 
religious  beliefs  than  in  matters  of  civic,  social  or  economic 
change.  However,  we  must  note  a  certain  limitation  here.   The 
radical  nature  of  rural  attitudes  in  regard  to  religion  does  not 
partake  of  a  denial  of  traditional  religion  as  such  to  any  thing 
like  the  extent  which  is  foundin  an  urban  population.   The 
radicalism  is  rather  in  the  nature  of  heretical  variations  in 
lelief  or  in  emotional  express ion, usually  in  the  direction  of  the 
more  primitive  beliefs  approximating  to  magic  and  mysticism  on  the 
one  hand  and  leading  to  an  intensification  of  the  emotional  expression 
and  appeal  on  the  other.   This  fact  is  entirely  in  keeping  with  the 
theory  of  the  occupational  connection  as  set  forth  above. 


19 


But  aside  from  this  fact,  why  should  the  fairoer  he 
inclined  to  variation  in  religious  belief  at  all,  or  at  least  to  a 
greater  degree  than  he  is  in  economic  matters?  As  was  noted 
earlier,  economic  radicalism  is  checked  up  by  the  nearness  and 
obviousness  of  adverse  consequences.   There  are  no  such 
inevitable  empirical  consequences  of  radicalism  in  religion. 
To  deny  religion  or  theology  altogether  might  indeed  have  very 
grave  consequences,  possibly  in  this  world  and  inevitably  in  the 
next.  But  to  differ  from  other  interpreters — which  may  be  trans- 
lated to  mean,  to  see  the  truth  as  it  really  is— brings  only  good, 
not  evil,  here  and  hereafter.  Since  such  a  change  in  subjective 
attitudes  does  not  involve  an  objective  readjustment  of  society 
and  industry  which  reflects  back  upon  the  individual  welfare — 
such  as  does  occur  when  laws  rather  than  opinions  are  changed— 
religious  radicalism,  within  bounds  short  of  atheism,  has  no 
apparent  or  obvious  evil  consequences. 

At  the  same  time  the  holding  of  radical  religious  views 
by  the  ruralite  is  favored  in  a  negative  way  by  the  fact  that  he 
lacks  ordinarily  a  scientifically  critical  attitude  of  mind  on 
questions  of  causation.  Mere  analogy  makes  a  tremendous  appeal 
to  him  because  he  can  not  analyze  it  out  into  its  contradictory 
elements.  Emotion  rather  than  fact  sways  him  here.  Such  can  in 
a  measure  be  said  of  the  city  dweller  also,  except  that  his 
chances  of  coming  in  contact  with  conflicting  and  mutually 
destructive  preachments  are  vastly  multiplied  by  his  smaller 
degree  of  isolation. 


20 


7,   There  is  Bome  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the 
relative  emotionality  of  the  rural  dweller.   There  seems  to  be 
good  evidence,  however,  that  the  conditions  of  riiral  life  are 
more  likely  on  the  whole  to  give  an  emotional  coloring  to 
attitudes  than  are  urban  conditions.  However  no  general  or 
sweeping  statement  can  be  made  in  regard  to  a  matter  which 
necessarily  varies  so  greatly  under  different  circumstances. 
The  mechanical  equipment  for  manifestations  of  mob  life  is 
greater  in  the  city  and  this  doubtless  explains  the  frequent 
occurrence  of  mob  violence  and  other  crowd  manifestations  in 
urban  commionities.  Some  have  mistaken  this  easier  and  consequently 
more  frequent  expression  of  mob  activities  in  the  city  to  indicate  a 
greater  emotionality  there  than  in  the  country.  The  present 
writer  is  convinced  that  such  is  not  the  case.   The  outbreaks 
known  as  lynching  parties,  fights  at  picnics  and  other  country 
gatherings,  the  frequency  of  feuds  in  rural  districts— of  the 
bloody  sort  in  the  more  primitive  sections  and  of  the  silent  kind 
in  other  regions--seem  to  indicate  thatupon  occasions  violence 
and  enger  are  as  indigenous  to  the  covintry  as  to  the  city. 

The  emotions  of  the  ruralite  are  more  repressed  and  at 
the  same  time  are  more  powerful  when  they  have  occasion  to 
break  forth.   This  repression  of  emotion  is  due  to  the  farmer's 
isolation  and  to  his  conventionality;  for  the  farmer  is  a  very 
conventional  person  within  the  range  of  his  activities  and  values. 
His  isolation  makes  him  introspective,  with  the  consequent 
tendency  to  mull  over  his  ideas  until  they  overpov/er  him  with 
conviction  through  their  constant  repetition  in  consciousness, 
A  single  impression  must  of  necessity  frequently  serve  as  the 


21 


basis  for  his  conclusions  and  conduct,  because  his  isolation 
prevents  him  from  multiplying  impressions  and  checking  up  on 
his  attitudes  and  beliefs.   If  the  impression  is  an  annoying  one, 
such  as  the  belief  that  his  neighbor  is  mistreating  him,  it  gathers 
force  constantly  with  introspection  and  he  selects  out  of  his 
previous  experience  all  those  incidents,  unchecked  by  further 
direct  investigation,  which  support  his  impressions.   Thus  he 
becomes  a  victim  of  auto-suggestion  due  to  his  isolation  and 
introspective  habits. 

The  city  dweller  on  the  contrary  multiplies  impressions 
as  he  multiplies  contacts  and  therefore  hasjlittle  chance  to 
introspect  on  the  smaller  matters  of  life.   The  multiplicity  of 
his  contacts  gives  an  outlet  for  expression  and  dissipates  any 
emotional  complexes  which  tend  to  jam]»  the  channel  of  his 
thoughts.   It  is  the  solitary  person,  as  has  been  shown  repeatedly, 
who  becomes  a  victim  of  his  own  prejudices  and  convictions.   The 
average  city  man  reserves  only  the  more  private  of  his  thoughts  and 
experiences  for  the  domination  of  conviction  and  prejudice.  His 
convictions  with  regard  to  the  more  common  or  surface  experiences 
in  life  are  washed  away  by  the  constant  flow  of  discussion.  He 
can  have  convictions  on  the  minor  matters  of  life  only  when 
they  are  conventions  common  to  his  group  and  therefore 
removed  from  the  field  of  discussion.   The  rura lite, however, 
is  but  little  in  the  field  of  discussion  and  his  conventional  atti- 
tudes are  nxfflierous.   Consequently  his  convictions  are  deep 
and  emotionally  based.   They  grow  strong  from  the  introspection 
upon  which  they  feed. 


22 


This  rather  fundamental  qualitative  difference  in  the 
Attitudes  of  the  ruralite  renders  him  decidedly  more  suggestible 
along  conventional  lines  than  is  the  urbanite.   Through  his 
introspective  auto-suggestion  his  opinions  on  religion,  on 
politics  and  on  certain  conventions  of  personal  conduct,  the 
distribution  of  authority  and  income  in  the  family,  or  his 
belief  in  the  unfriendliness  of  a  neighbor  may  take  on  in  his 
consciousness  the  semblance  of  a  verity  which  is  not  to  be  disputed. 
His  dogmatism  in  regard  to  such  matters  is  a  matter  of  common 
remark.   The  result  of  this  attitude  is  that  he  is  easily 
suggestible  along  the  line  of  his  convictions,  often  to  the  point 
of  the  ridiculous.   One  of  his  dogmas,  growing  out  of  his 
occupational  isolation  and  his  mistrust  of  others,  is  that  of  self- 
dependency  and  self-sufficiency.  He  acts  as  well  as  thinks  along  the 
line  of  preserving  his  own  interests  and  individuality.  At, 
one  time  this  individualistic  attitude  may  lead  him  to  place  the 
small  apples  in  the  middle  of  the  barrel  and  on  another  occasion 
it  may  cause  him  to  purchase  a  gold  brick.   His  lack  of  scientific 
or  analytical  training  prevents  him  from  checking  up  on  the  gold 
brick  and  his  lack  of  social  insight  prevents  him  from  seeing  how 
dishonest  marketing  operates  as  a  severe  tax  upon  the  profits  of  hie 
industry, 

8.   The  traditional  frugality  of  the  farmer  cannot  be  said 
to  be  true  without  exception.  Haever,  dislike  for  the  alienation 
of  wealth  and  the  exercise  of  foresight  are  traits  doubtless  more 
frequently  encountered  in  the  country  than  in  the  city.   The 
causes  for  tMs  are  numerous,  and  some  are  worthy  of  mention.   The 
most  important  of  these  is  the  fact  that  until  recently  at  least  the 


23 


farmer's  income  has  been  primarily  on  a  commodity  basis  rather 
than  a  monetary  one.  He  produced  things,  while  the  city  man 
received  wages  or  a  salary.  His  wealth  therefore  consisted  of  a 
wide  range  of  commodities  which  must  needs  be  conserved  with  a 
great  deal  of  care.   This  care  was  all  the  more  necessary  because 
his  commodity  income  was  irregular.  At  least  he  received  it  at 
long  intervals  and  it  was  subject  to  such  elements  of  chance 
as  those  of  season,  drouth,  insect  enemy,  destruction  of  property 
from  physical  causes  and  the  like.  On  the  contrary  the  machine 
worker's  income  has  a  sort  of  automatic  regularity  and  inevitableness 
which  causes  it  to  seem  but  a  part  of  the  economy  of  his 
condition  and  circumstance  to  get  one  installment  out  of  the  way  in 
time  to  make  room  for  the  expenditure  of  the  next.   The  expenditure 
of  money  is  so  much  a  matter  of  routine  with  him  that  he  thinks 
little  of  it. 

Closely  connected  with  this  fact  of  the  irregularity 
of  the  farmer's  income  is  the  seasonal  nature  of  his  occupation. 
The  succession  of  the  seasons  influences  the  farmer  much  more 
directly  and  powerfully  than  it  does  the  urbanite.  There  are 
seasonal  trades  in  urban  industry,  but  these  affect  only  a 
relatively  small  portion  of  urban  workers.  Wages  go  on  regardless  of 
season,  but  for  the  farmer  there  is  a  very  long  period  of  consiunption 
quite  apart  from  the  shorter  period  in  which  income  is  received. 
This  cultivates  in  him  a  high  degree  of  foresight.   From  the  necessity 
of  laying  up  his  winter  stores  and  his  next  season's  seed  supply  he 
comes  to  have  a  heightened  respect  for  the  values  of  all 
commodities,  even  for  the  smallest.   However,  with  the  change  in 
the  farmer's  economy  from  his  old  self-sufficingness  to  the  modern 
tendency  to  produce  for  the  markets  and  his  consequert  tendency 


24 


to  live  on  the  basis  of  hie  bank  account  rather  than  from  his 
acctonulation  of  visible  stores,  has  appeared  a  tendency  towards 
a  breakdown  in  his  habits  of  frugality  and  thrift  which  brings 
him  closer  in  this  respect  to  the  typical  urbanite.   The  facts 
that  the  farmer  is  still  generally  a  property  o-wner  rather 
than  a  wage  worker,  that  conditions  under  which  he  gains  his 
subsistence  are  relatively  hard  and  exacting,  and  even  the  mere 
fact  that  he  has  abundant  space  in  which  to  store  things,  all 
doubtless  contribute  in  some  degree  to  produce  in  him  his 
tendencies  to  save. 

To  siimmarize  the  conclusions  of  this  paper,  it  may  be 
said  that  on  the  whole  the  farmer's  attitudes  affect  the  character 
of  his  practical  adjustments  in  life  in  a  nxjmber  of  characteristic 
ways.  His  conservatism  in  matters  of  science  causes  him  to 
accept  the  beneficial  advances  in  his  industry  with  great 
hesitation.  In  the  early  days  of  the  movement  to  foster 
scientific  agriculture  the  farmer  could  scarcely  be  interested, 
and.  still  he  hangs  back  unduly,  especially  with  reference  to  the 
adoption  of  improved  methods  of  marketing  and  cooperation  in 
general.  His  individualism  in  this  latter  connection  is  therefore 
perhaps  more  negative  tlian  positive,  for  his  occupational 
isolation  has  prevented  him  from  acquiring  the  techniques  of 
collective  action  and  his  school  system  has  not  presented  him  with 
a  Icnowledge  of  the  techniques  of  collective  management.  His 
individxxalism  has  made  him  highly  suggestible  in  the  line  of  his 
own  interests  as  he  sees  them.  His  two  types  of  isolation, 
geographic  and  occupational,  and  his  faulty  school  system  have 
prevented  him  from  developing  a  social  or  civic  attitude  of  mind 


25 


in  most  respects.   Consequently  he  often  falls  victim  to  the 
wiles  of  the  conscienceless  politician  or  falls  into  the  ruthless 
hands  of  the  middleman  and  the  skillful  exploiter  under  numerous 
guises.  His  peculiar  emotional  convictions  and  "biases,  growing 
out  of  his  isolation  and  introspection,  render  him  peculiarly 
suggestilDle  along  the  lines  of  his  convictions  and  supposed 
interests,  especially  in  the  direction  of  his  traditional 
politics  and  theology.   This  last  is  heightened  by  his  mystical 
appreciation  of  nature  and  his  experiential  inability  to 
generalize  or  reconstruct  nature  on  the  basis  of  scientific 
analysis.   This  same  emotional  instability  and  impulsiveness  renders 
him  particularly  open  to, appeals  of  the  concrete  and  personal  sort, 
la  hospitality  and  kindliness  to  his  friend  or  friendly  neighbor 
he  is  excelled  only  by  his  primitive  prototype  of  the  tent  and 
the  plain.  Yet  at  the  same  time  his  kind  is  more  than  ordinarily 
closed  to  general  programs  of  social  welfare  because  he  lacks 
breadth  of  social  vision.   The  personal  relationship  he  can 
feel  and  see,  but  the  social  relationship  he  has  not  yet 
learned  to  generalize,  because  it  has  not  yet  come  completely 
enoxigh  within  his  experience. 

If  one  were  setting  forth  general  rules  to  guide  the 
demagogue  or  the  social  worker  in  making  an  appeal  to  the  rural 
population  they  might  be  stated  in  something  like  these  woi-ds. 
Appeal  must  be  made  to  the  farmer  on  the  basis  of  his  self 
interest  rather  than  on  that  of  social  welfare;  on  the  basis  of 
his  personal  sympathy  rather  than  on  that  of  social  utility;  on 
the  basis  of  religious  and  political  convictions  and  in  the 
terminology  of  catch  phrases ,  symbol  and  shibboleth  rather 
than  on  that  of  formal  scientific  principles.  Yet  it  would 


26 


"be  quite  inaccurate  to  say  tliat  an  appeal  for  the  "better  things 
of  life  can  not  he  presented  to  the  farmer.  On  the  contrary  there 
is  perhaps  no  industrial  class  more  conscientious  within  the 
limits  of  its  thinking.   It  is  true,  however,  that  discrimination 
must  he  used  in  making  appeals  to  the  farming  classes  on  "behalf  of 
constructive  proposals.   The  angle  of  approach  must  "be  adapted 
to  the  farmers'  experience  and  prepossessions,  tliat  is  to 
say,  his  mental  attitudes  must  he  taken  into  consideration. 

It  should  he  said,  of  course,  that  the  attitudes  here 
attri"buted  to  rural  people  do  not  apply  in  equal  degree  to  all 
mem"bers  and  classes  of  the  rural  population.   The  intention  here 
has  "been  to  strike  an  average  or  a  mean,  since  it  is  ohviously 
impossihle  in  a  single  paper  so  to  qualify  a  generalization  as  to 
take  into  account  each  variation  in  a  field  so  complex  as  that  of 
rural  life.   The  more  intelligent  and  better  educated  types  of 
farmers,  those  who  are  making  a  business  of  scientific  farming, 
largely  after  the  model  of  the  better  organized  businesses  of  the 
city,  have  in  very  large  degree,  if  not  wholly,  dispensed  with  the 
traits  and  attitudes  here  described.   Ultimately  perhaps  we  may 
expect  most  of  these  traits  to  disappear  from  the  great  masses 
of  the  rural  population.   If  we  can  so  reorganize  rural  life  as  to 
abolish  tae  worst  forms  of  isolation — at  least  of  geographic  isoaltion- 
and  introduce  a  knowledge  of  science  and  of  the  economy  of  social 
relationships  into  the  equipment  of  Ibe  farmer  and  multiply  his 
facilities  for  normalizing  contacts  and  group  expression  we  may 
expect  his  conservatism,  individualism  and  abnormal  suggestibility 
along  lines  of  interest  and  conviction  in  large  measure  to 
disappear.   This  would  mean  that  the  differences  of  attitude 


27 


"between  ruralite  and  urbanite  would  be  minimized  and  therefore 
another  large  source  of  social  misunderstanding  and  conflict 
diminished  or  removed.   Many  agencies  are  already  at  work  in  this 
direction.   The  press,  including  the  newspaper,  the  magazine, 
the  agricultural  journal  and  the  scientific  "book  and  bulletin,  is 
constantly  increasing  its  actirities.   The  newspaper  as  at  present 
controlled'perhaps  of  all  these  agencies  contribute  least  to  the 
awakening  and  redirecting  of  the  farmer,  but  the  agricultural 
journal  is  awakening  to  its  opportunities.   The  agricultural 
extension  service,  the  r\Aral  libraries,  the  rural  clubs  and  social 
centers  are  all  busy  disseminating  the  fundamentals  of  science 
through  practice  and  are  bringing  people  into  closer  touch  personally, 
thus  lessening  introspection  and  bringing  in  a  newer  and  wider 
experience  of  social  relations  and  relationships.  Of  all  these 
agencies  perhaps  the  rural  church  and  the  rural  school  have  the 
largest  possibilities.   The  rural  church,  when  properly  reorganized 
and  when  its  soul  has  been  born  anew,  should  be  able  to  provide 
leadership  and  inspiration  for  all  sorts  of  movements  and  programs 
of  value  to  the  rural  community.   The  revitalized  rural  school  in 
its  turn,  through  a  curriculum  which  is  constructed  with  due 
regard  for  the  needs  of  the  rural  community,  and  a  plant  adequate  to 
the  various  community  needs,  will  be  able  to  give  a  concreteness 
and  adequacy  of  detail  and  technique  to  tlie  new  physical  and 
biological  and  economic  and  social  sciences  in  their  relations 
to  rural  life  which  will  perhaps  go  farthest  toward  the  removal 
of  the  old  attitudes  and  the  substitution  of  the  new. 


Society.   IV:810-16, 
Cf.  Bernard, L. L, ,  Rehabilitating  the  Rural  School, School  and 


